Ukraine Separatists Grant Putin's Appeal for Safety Corridor

[joshcryer]

22. Yes, it is absolutely absurd.

As you are remiss to point out every third or so post to me, I covered an event in Libya, which went on for half a year. I covered this event daily. I spent my entire free time covering this event. Every single day I saw absurd reports very similar to the claims in that video. Very similar. Interestingly, the poster you claim posted the video would make similar, absurd, completely unrealistic, completely bizarre claims like that.

I have read many many reports. One was that there are 30,000 dead Ukrainian soldiers, a completely unsupported and asinine comment, but it was posted quite frequently on pro-Russia feeds. A common rule of thumb in war is that for every 1 man killed 3 are injured. That means you would have something around 120,000 casualties, with 90,000 soldiers in hospitals. Mothers, fathers, wives, they would all be missing these people. We're talking a huge chunk of the population. There's no way that is covered up.

Most of the losses are happening to disparate militias. Those in the anti-Russian blogosphere are concerned about this because those guys are volunteers, and it is felt that this is hurting the ATO efforts (the militas are probably Right Sector, Sovoboda types). Also, most information comes out from these guys, guys flying in from other areas of Ukraine or even other EU countries to "play war." So as these militas get wiped out by the rebels, there's less and less information to be gained about ATO ops.

As far as UA losses they tend to be low, they surrender when they can, the rebels take what they can, and the UA regroups. When the UA advances, the rebels are taken aback because the UA isn't aggressive that much. The UA takes back stuff, and the cycle repeats. It is a basic land war between two different groups, and the government in Kiev isn't supporting the militas because they're not technically sanctioned to be funded (no doubt at this point the US just doesn't want any groups outside of command and control to have any kinds of weapons or material support).

As far as captured equipment, the UA captured their first T72-B3 just a few hours ago which indicates that UA are advancing today on Donetsk. Now, of course, you will hear today that the rebels are making massive advances, that the Russians allowed UA forces to be freed and that may well be true. It is a smart gambit to send the less hardened fighters to the border, let them get shelled, and then have them surrender. Then Russia gets a PR stunt, some of them stay in Russia, others return to fight because they recognized that Russia was the one shelling them after all. So it's not a big deal, but it will be bigger news than the Donetsk surge today, if it happens.

The fog of war is very real, and you perpetuate it by posting such an unsupportable claim. There is still a gap in Novyi Svit and if they feel that they are surrounded they can bug out pretty easily. It was actually quite clever of the UA forces to cut a wedge there and take over the bridge and towns there. The most important thing will be encircling Donetsk because it will be a good morale boost and the rebels will likely flee like they did Slovyansk.



White doves painted with the words "No War" near Mariupol. The gambit to take Mariupol won't succeed, if it was even real or just a ploy...